Tag Archives: Home

One year ago, at 2:26 am, my son was born. Today he is one year old. ONE YEAR OLD. I am looking at my son through the baby monitor as I write this down. My emotions keep wavering between deep guttural sobs to pure elation. My son, is ONE YEAR OLD.

If you would have told me two years ago that I would have a one year old right now I would hope that you were a psychic telling me my future (trust me, I did go to a few during my trying-to-get-pregnant days), but deep down I may not have believed you for fear it wouldn’t come true. And now here it is. My little baby, who is no longer much of a baby, but more like a waddling, drooly, pumpkin-toothed toddler, is about to reach his biggest milestone yet.

I think that this past year both our learning curves could be compared to that of a Mt. Everest graph, a colossal mountain which we hiked together, blindly, clinging to each other, but always together, mother and son, as one, learning how to navigate this new world that we both are a part of.

If I look back on all the things I have learned, it would take up much more than this blog entry. But I will sum up most of the highlights, if I can. And I will try without making my keyboard too wet.

To Idan:

One year ago, before you were born, I was neatly folding each onesie that family and friends had given me and made sure they were washed in baby friendly detergent. I neatly placed each one by month and size. I would put each one on my belly and would try to imagine you in them. ~Now they are all packed up, because you are too big, and you now wear t-shirts and pants. Like a big boy. And your mother is lucky if she can find one neatly folded, and has used up all the baby friendly detergent.

In one year you taught me that yes, I can indeed live off of 3 hours of sleep, and work a full time job at the same time. Before I had you, I would obnoxiously say to people how I NEEDED at least 9 hours of sleep, and if I didn’t get it, I wouldn’t survive. It has been one year, and I still do not get 9 hours of sleep. But I have survived, and I am a stronger person because of it. And I have loved you every waking minute that we have had together.

One year ago before you were born, I spent my last day before you were delivered with my best friend, shopping for things for you. That was the first time in four months that I walked around a store, and I was in shock to see Christmas items on the shelf, since the last things I saw were summer items. I walked up and down the baby aisle twenty times touching each different product and realizing that I was about to have a baby. For real. ~ I learned that the cute items that were bought, were not as important as the late night run to Walgreens weeks later for gas drops, Tylenol, and non-scented baby lotion.

In one year you went from being my little 6 lb eating, sleeping, pooping machine, to this young, vibrant ever-learning little boy. I have watched you say your first words, grow your first teeth, and take your first steps. You have developed your own likes, dislikes, and already have changed and touched the lives of everyone you’ve met. You have started developing your own personality which includes feeding the dogs cheerios, pointing and saying words, and biting your mom’s arm while laughing. You are turning into you.

One year ago before you were born your mother had no idea what true love was. Yes, she knew love. Very deep love from many people. But when you were born, all the questions of the universe were answered, heaven opened its gates a bit, and God let me look upon his face while I held a miracle in my arms. From that day, and every day since, I am so grateful and thankful that you are in my life.

Through the last 12 months I have cried, sobbed, laughed, cringed, yawned (a lot), questioned myself, questioned others, all the while trying to figure out this whole new life called mothering.

I could keep writing more, but I would keep writing the same words over and over. I love you Idan Joseph Humphrey. You are the light of my life. Thank you for being born, and giving me the best year of my life! Here we go, toddler-hood!

I have heard it since my childhood, that being a mother is the hardest job on the planet. I thought to myself, “What, really?! How can being a MOM and being home all day be that hard?!” Now, after my first week and a half home, I couldn’t agree more.

I remember watching Oprah in college, and she did this whole special dedicated to mothers, calling it the most important and least recognized job on the planet. She became very emotional and started crying. They panned to all the people in the audience, mostly women, who were dabbing their eyes with tissues, stretching out their mouths in the funny frown shape as they smeared their mascara down their cheeks. I am an empathetic person, and will cry with most people, but I never fully made the connection until now.

It is all true. Being a mom is the hardest, most rewarding, and least recognized job on the planet.

Last week my husband officially started back at school after a long and glorious summer. It honestly felt like I was starting my new “job” as well, and I couldn’t help but still have a bit of those new job rookie nerves. Idan is over nine months old, but this is the first time in our lives together that we are with each other for eight (plus) hours a day without any help, assistance, nearby guidance or even friendship. Nope, I am 100% on my own.

When I first had Idan, I was allotted eight weeks maternity leave before having to return full time to work. That time was such a blur that I really only remember fragments of it. I do have picture documentation of me however with my greasy, pulled up hair, mismatched PJ set, and swollen, puffy eyes from crying and lack of sleep. All I remember of that time was it was cold, I was sore from recovery, and I had a small bout of the baby blues. I was only home with Idan for a few weeks before the “hubs” had Christmas break, and then took over baby duties for two months while I went back to work.

However, life is different now that I am staying home with him full time. I no longer have pulled up greasy hair (well pulled up, but hopefully not greasy) My eyes are no longer puffy and swollen, in fact they have a bit of spark in them that was gone for a long time. I finally found the matching set to my PJs and have since organized my dresser.

Things are different than they were on maternity leave. There isn’t that impending doom of sadness lurking around the corner knowing that I have to leave my small child in the hands of someone else (Good hands, might I add, but still not mine nonetheless). I don’t have to rush every moment with him afraid that someone else will get to see it and not me. I am extremely blessed and fortunate that I am able to stay home and be the one to raise my son.

So that was the sunshine and rainbow part of the blog, now I want to briefly talk about the nitty gritty of what the first week was like. And like I said previously, being a full time stay at home mom is HARD!

I want to recap on a few events that have taken place:

Mommy and Idan’s adventure to the post office ended with pureed raisin, oatmeal and prune vomit down my shirt, in my hair, and on the book of stamps that I just bought (The nice lady behind me opened the door for me on the way out).

Idan decided that he now has a 15 minute window for each activity that he is engaged in before he screams like a holy terror (which makes any type of cleaning or cooking very challenging).

He acquired his second cold to date and three teeth coming in at the same time. Yes people, three teeth.

I have made 3 1/2 home cooked meals, and am pretty proud of how they turned out.

I did allot myself a “break” when he was napping and drank some coffee and watched my guilty pleasures that were recorded on the DVR. I have successfully followed my cleaning schedule for the first week, and I must say my house is cleaner now than it has been before. I know, I know, just wait till he is old enough to destroy the house, but I am enjoying it while it lasts.

I have even managed to fit in a trip to Babies R Us, Target and Walmart (while having nice hair and makeup might I add), re-organized my kitchen (mainly throwing away steel cut oats that had meal worms in them! EEK!), and managed to squeeze in exercise! Wheew!

I know that every week like this won’t be as eventful. I may even have a week of just being in my PJs and eating take-out. But, I am proud that I have started some semblance of a schedule. As a former Special Education teacher, being structured was extremely important for both the kids and myself, and I find that I am craving some of that structure at home. I have to say that even though being home is hard in many ways (mainly I am a bit lonely from lack of adult conversation and interaction), and being “on” ALL DAY, I do find that having a coffee break whenever I want it is an amazing perk! I might even bake some muffins to add to that coffee this week.

I want to wrap up this blog post by saying a special thanks to my mom who made it look so easy. She was always cooking, cleaning, helping my dad run a business, and still had time to always be kind to my sister and I, and hardly ever lost her patience! I am definitely taking a few tips from her while I am home, and a few recipes for that matter. Because it is true, nobody can do it like a mom can!

Until next time.

A few highlights!

Idan is on the VERGE of crawling. He does this scoot, crawl, roll combo thing, but he is moving!

My little babe is not so little anymore, weighing in at over nineteen pounds at his last doctor’s appointment, and no longer has his gummy smile. Two lower teeth and the two top ones poking through. *sigh* I am about to have a toddler

July 26th, 2012. There are few moments of days and times that stick out in people’s minds. You might remember what you were wearing on a certain day, or what song was on the radio. You might remember what you ate, or didn’t eat, who you talked to, what you were planning on doing that day. The day could have started out like any other day, or perhaps it was a day that started out bad to begin with. Either way, these are the moments that your heart and mind hold onto in the midst of tragedy.

It was a very hot summer day, and to me, it seemed even more hot than normal for July. Any pregnant woman can tell you that being pregnant over the summer is not very fun, and to add twins and a house without air conditioning seemed to make things worse. I was on day four of bed rest. Maybe five, details are somewhat blurry at this point. The week prior had been extremely stressful when complications with my pregnancy ensued, and I was told that bed rest would be required until the babies arrive. At that point they were trying to get me at least to 28 weeks.

I was 22 weeks pregnant.

I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast, or how I did my hair. I am not sure what song was popular on the radio. I was so scared about the events that had just taken place, I am not sure if I could have told you at the time who the President was. But I do remember I was wearing a black shirt and blue capris. We had a doctor’s appointment that morning (one of thousands to come), to see how everything had turned out post-surgery.

I had felt the babies kick earlier that morning. We had just had a “gender reveal” party and found out that we were having a boy AND a girl. The perfect family. One of each. Everything I had ever wanted in one beautiful moment. We proudly named them Idan and Coraline “Cora” for short (The names that my husband and I picked out six months into dating).

I carefully hopped onto the table and the ultrasound tech began the usual drill. Gel on belly, rolling it around to see different shaded shapes and body parts. She scanned onto Cora, paused and then quickly went to Idan. His beautiful profile emerged. There he was kicking, rolling, and even yawning. He was a dream. She then went back to Cora.

It was that moment, when you feel fear in your heart and your mind quickly starts rationalizing what you are feeling in order to protect itself. I could feel sweat start to accumulate on my lip and under my arms. I grabbed my husband’s hand and looked at him, he looked at me with deep concern – not the usual playfulness I typically see from him – squeezed my hand and looked back at the tech. We waited as we watched her narrow her eyes onto the screen. She kept clicking buttons and moving the wand around to different places. I could hear the white noise of the air-conditioner and my heart pound in my chest.

“I don’t see a heartbeat.”

The words ripped through my ears and I shook my head. I didn’t believe what she had just said. I asked her again to check, show me, prove to me that the little girl whom I just felt kick that morning is really gone. I could see Cora’s little body, curled up, feet crossed, arms tucked in around her, and no heart-beat.

“It looks like she just passed this morning” the ultra sound tech said. “I will go get the doctor.”

And out she went, and down came all the walls around me.

The next moments after that I don’t really remember. They were filled with deep sobs, my body shaking with each guttural wail. The doctor came in with his tensed, pursed lips explaining to us that there is no way of knowing what happened to her, and unless she is delivered today, we will most likely never know the cause, and because her twin is alive, I will have to carry her until he is delivered.

And that was it. She was gone. Just like that. Months of planning, dreaming, and envisioning a life with twins was gone, and I was left to carry both life and death within me. Both joy and sorrow. Hello and Goodbye. And I did. With each day there was joy that Idan was bigger, stronger, and still alive another day, and there was also sadness that Cora was gone, curled up peacefully inside me, safely sleeping.

Through the next 16 weeks, until they were both delivered, I had heard it all, and all with good intention from people. “Well if there were problems better it happen now than later”; “These things happen”; “it wasn’t meant to be”; “at least you have him.”

But I lost her.

I know how extremely blessed I am to have Idan. I am reminded everyday how close I came to losing it all, and what a miracle it is that he made it to 37 weeks. I look at him and my breath catches in my chest, and I thank God that he trusted me with such a precious gift, and despite all the suffering, I still deserved to have him. I am satisfied with the thought that he may be my only child that I ever have.

But it still doesn’t take the pain away that I feel for the loss of her.

Grief is an interesting thing. There really are different stages. Sadness, denial, negotiations, anger, then, at some point, healing. And everyone mourns at their own pace. To me, with the one year anniversary of her passing, I am finally able to go there, grieve and celebrate the life that she did have.

I am honored that she chose me to be her mom, Idan to be her brother and my husband to be her father. I will be sad that I never will have the moments of seeing her grow, or play with her brother. I mourn that I will never get to dress her up in super girly clothes (even if she would have hated it), or have that Mother-Daughter relationship that I cherish with my mom. I am sad that my niece and nephew will never get to play with her and have the girls gang up on the boys. I am sad that I will never know what she would have grown to look like, or who she would have become. Would she have brown eyes like me? Would she have her brother’s dimples, too? All of these things I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

She gave me 22 weeks of a dream I always wanted. She gave my husband and I joy that we have never known, and with her passing she gave me humility and the gift of knowing that life is frail and precious and to fully live each moment. She gave Idan the gift of life, because with her passing, I was able to carry him to 37 weeks. Full term, which was not what the doctors thought could be a possibility early on.

I want to conclude this blog post to Cora, to honor her memory and to tell my story for any others out there who have grieved the loss of a child. It doesn’t matter the age or stage, when it’s a life that is connected to yours it is meaningful.

I wrote this poem back in 2003 when I was in college. Ironically it is dated 12-1-2003, their due date, and that was the day we picked up her ashes. Funny how things have weird ties to others. Maybe she was whispering in my ear when I wrote this poem 10 years ago.

8:52 PM and the boy just fell asleep. His night time routine started at 6:45 PM. Two hours and seven minutes after our night of bath, massages, and lullabies started. Idan and I have his bed time routine down like champions. When he was two weeks old, and I was in a state of sleep deprivation delirium, I decided to read the book Happiest Baby on the Block; Guide to Great Sleep and man was it a game changer! I followed about 98% of what Dr. Harvey Karp instructed, and Idan has been the Happiest Baby on the Block ever since. Except for tonight.

I guess I want to just write a short blog on the CHALLENGE and EXHAUSTION that is Bed time. Dr. Harvey Karp said that a lot of night sleep problems are sometimes sleep problems during the day. The boy has had a huge last few days. His little 8-month old world has been filled with swim lessons (mostly me pulling him around the pool while he chews on the little, plastic whale toy), bowling for the first time (which mainly consisted of my husband and I trying to console him since we were right under the loud, music speakers), and it was day-camp day and swarms of little unsupervised children were running around everywhere. It took all I had to silence the teacher voice in me and ignore them pouring coke products and wiping boogers on each other. Idan also has been traveling a lot, and spending time with family.

So, I had a feeling when he skipped his AM nap and took a three hour long afternoon nap, that I might be in trouble for the evening. We haven’t had too many nights where it has taken two plus hours, but tonight was one of those nights. I know any moms who have endured this may be biting their lips and shaking their heads in agreement. Putting an overly tired, teething baby to bed is NOT FUN.

I found that I was using everything in my arsenal to put him to bed. He had his usual bath with his favorite bath toys (which include a squeaky ABC book, and three little plastic fish). I sang him his favorite sleepy time songs, rocked him, holding him in various positions, and gave him pain meds for his gums. At one point, he was screaming so much after putting him down that I just brought him back out to play in his “exersaucer” with me feeling somewhat defeated. My husband was at his Writer’s Group and I was very much looking forward to having a few hours of alone time watching my sickly, guilty pleasure of “Toddlers and Tiaras.”

Anyways, where am I going with this blog tonight? Nowhere really. I just wanted to write what it was like to have my little moment of “going to bed madness.” There is so much about being mom that I am learning by fire. Or more like bath water, tonight. I am learning that being a mom is TOUGH. The amount of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that is involved is enough to keep the world circling for eternity. I am tired from the sheer amount of time it took tonight to pick him up and put him down, console his tiny little crying body, and the emotional energy of trying to figure out what to do next (I don’t believe in letting him crying it out, so I like to use other tactics instead).

That is the main thing I have learned tonight. Sometimes, I am not sure what to do next, and that is okay. I am learning that advice from doctors is just that. Advice. I am the one who truly is learning what my son needs, and he is learning about me at the same time. So, even though I didn’t get my Toddlers and Tiaras fix, I did have that one beautiful moment right before my son fell asleep where he put his little hand on my face, snuggled his cheek next to my chest and closed his eyes. That was worth the extra two hours and seven minutes of my mommy shift.

Well, this concludes one of those weeks where it was just a little bizzaro. Nothing bad, nothing particularly exciting, just a whole lot of things that were “out of the routine.” Being a Special Education teacher, EVERYTHING is about structure and routine, and when it doesn’t happen, everyone feels the effects. This week included: one and a half snow days from a freak cold front blizzard (which is actually very cool!); a personal work day where I was at work, working, but without kids; 5 days of extreme muscle discomfort caused by a yelling Jillian Michaels my son starting daycare; and one experimental dinner that I attempted to cook this week.

See? I have started a few of my goals mentioned in the earlier blogs…even though I am sure I took a few steps back by indulging in a Red Robin cheeseburger for dinner tonight. I might go off on this for a moment… My husband and I don’t own fancy cars, we don’t drink liquor, we don’t buy lavish gifts or expensive clothes….we LIKE. TO. EAT.

Eating is one of our favorite pleasures and the best craft that we have mastered. We love the atmosphere of restaurants, the refills on beverages ( I like to mix half coke half diet coke), we like our table conversation, we like to people watch. We love going to eat after a long week at work, or a day shopping. We love that we can rattle off five different restaurants in one breath and take another one to decide where to eat. What is even funnier though, is that my husband and I aren’t necessarily food connoisseurs. We do not like seafood or sushi (sorry fish lovers!) or any part of an animal that is questionable. No, we are more your steak and potatoes with Mac N’ Cheese fare Our favorite places include: Red Robin, Cracker Barrel and a local restaurant called FAT ALBERTS. (Need I say more?)

When I become an amazing chef, I really want to learn to cook the things I love when I go out to eat. I don’t think my cooking will ever take the place of going out to eat, but maybe by learning to cook it will benefit both my body and my checkbook. I am determined to take a “formal class” to teach me about the basics of cooking. There was a time in my childhood where it was my dream to be a chef. I am not sure how or why that went away, but I would at least like to re-capture a part of that dream.

Anyways…I started this blog post last night, and was falling asleep while trying to type…and I just finished it this morning after day 6 of the 30 day shred. We are trying to time out our workouts during Idan’s nap time. So far so good! My muscles are still arguing with me as to why I keep tormenting them by making them do something, but with each butt kick and squat their voices are slowly diminishing! I will post results at the end of the month as to how we did…only if they are good results, that is.